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Struck while walking in Charleston? We find out what the driver did wrong and pursue every dollar of coverage that applies.
On the Charleston peninsula, people walk everywhere. Shoppers step off King Street curbs. Visitors cross Market Street with their eyes on the buildings instead of the traffic. Students move between College of Charleston blocks at all hours, and the bars keep the sidewalks busy long after dark. A person on foot has no bumper, no airbag, and no steel around them. When a driver rolls a right turn, looks down at a phone, or never slows for a crossing, the walker absorbs the whole impact. The seriously hurt are taken to MUSC, and families spend the next weeks in a hospital hallway instead of at home.
Schiller and Hamilton Law Firm represents people hit while walking in Charleston, North Charleston, Mount Pleasant, and the rest of the Lowcountry. Our Charleston office is at 1629 Meeting Street Road. We know how it lands when a driver hurts you and the insurer then suggests you should have been more careful. We gather the proof, deal with the adjusters, and press for the full value of the claim. Call 843-350-5420 for a free consultation. We work on a contingency fee, so there is no fee unless we win.
What happens in the first hour shapes everything after it. Health comes first. Call 911 so officers and paramedics come out. Depending on where you were struck that may be Charleston police downtown, North Charleston police on Rivers Avenue, Mount Pleasant police on Coleman Boulevard, or the Highway Patrol out on US-17. Their report becomes the first official account of the crash. Let EMS check you even if you can stand. Head bleeds and internal injuries can stay quiet for hours, and the trauma team at MUSC is built for exactly this.
If you are able, get the driver name, tag number, and insurance details. Photograph the car, the street, the signal or crossing, the lighting, and your injuries. Along King Street and Market Street many storefronts and bars keep camera footage that is overwritten within days, so note which buildings faced the crossing. Ask any witness for a phone number, because tourists leave town quickly and are hard to find later. Do not apologize, do not guess at speeds or distances, and do not give the driver insurer a recorded statement first. Call a Charleston pedestrian accident lawyer while the evidence still exists.
South Carolina Code Section 56-5-3130 says that where a signal is not in place or not working, a driver must yield, slowing or stopping if need be, to a pedestrian crossing within a crosswalk on the driver half of the road, or approaching closely enough from the other half to be in danger. A crosswalk does not have to be painted. Section 56-5-460 counts the space between the sidewalk lines at an intersection as a crosswalk even with no markings, which matters at older peninsula corners where the paint has worn off. Section 56-5-3130(d) also stops a driver from passing a vehicle that has stopped at a crosswalk to let someone cross. Section 56-5-3230 requires every driver to use due care to avoid hitting a pedestrian and to take extra precaution around a child or an obviously confused or intoxicated person.
People on foot carry duties too. Section 56-5-3110 requires obeying pedestrian signals. Section 56-5-3150 says someone crossing away from a crosswalk must yield to traffic, and that between adjacent signalized intersections a person may cross only in a marked crosswalk. Section 56-5-3130(b) says no one may step suddenly off a curb into the path of a car too close to stop. Breaking one of those rules does not end a claim. It moves the fight to how fault gets divided.
South Carolina uses modified comparative negligence, adopted in Nelson v. Concrete Supply Co., 303 S.C. 243, 399 S.E.2d 783 (1991). An injured person recovers as long as their share of the fault is not greater than the driver share, and the award is cut by that share. Twenty percent of the blame on a 100,000 dollar verdict leaves 80,000 dollars. More than half the blame leaves nothing. The South Carolina Supreme Court has stated it plainly since: a plaintiff is barred from recovery if his negligence outweighs the defendant.
That cliff edge is why adjusters work so hard to shift blame onto the person walking. Expect to hear that you crossed mid block on King Street, that you stepped out from between parked cars on Meeting Street, that you had been at a bar near Market Street, or that you wore dark clothes on an unlit stretch of Savannah Highway. None of that decides the case on its own. A driver who was speeding, turning without looking, or distracted still owed you due care. We pull the footage, find the witnesses, measure sight lines and lighting, and bring in a reconstruction expert when the percentages are close.
Some drivers do not stop. Others carry no insurance. Neither leaves a Charleston family with nowhere to turn. Section 38-77-150 requires uninsured motorist coverage on every auto policy issued in this state, with limits at least equal to the minimums in Section 38-77-140, which are 25,000 dollars for bodily injury to one person and 50,000 dollars for two or more in one crash. Section 38-77-30(7) defines an insured as the named insured and, living in the same household, a spouse and relatives of either, while in a motor vehicle or otherwise. Those last words are why your own policy, or a household relative policy, can reach you when you were on foot.
Hit and run claims carry conditions. Under Section 38-77-170 the crash must be reported to police within a reasonable time, and one of three must be true: physical contact with the unknown vehicle, an independent witness who signs an affidavit, or a recording of the crash. You also must not have been careless about identifying the driver. On a busy block that often comes down to one camera or one bystander. Section 38-77-160 also requires insurers to offer underinsured motorist coverage, which matters when a 25,000 dollar limit will not cover one MUSC admission.
A pedestrian claim is meant to cover what the crash actually cost. The economic side is the part with paperwork behind it: the ambulance, the trauma bay and surgeries at MUSC, the hospital stay, rehabilitation, follow up care, medication, help at home, and travel to appointments. It also covers the pay lost while out of work, and the earnings you will not make if you cannot go back to the same job. That last piece hits hardest for people who work on their feet in Charleston restaurants, hotels, and the building trades.
The other side comes with no receipts. It covers pain, sleeplessness, fear of the street where it happened, scarring and disfigurement, and the loss of ordinary things you used to do, from a walk along the Battery to carrying your own child. When a pedestrian does not survive, South Carolina Code Sections 15-51-10 and following let the family bring a wrongful death action, including funeral expenses and the loss of that person companionship and support. Severe pedestrian injuries keep costing money for years, so we build the case around the care that will be needed later, not only the bills already in the file.
A suit filed too late is dismissed no matter how clear the driver fault was, and defense counsel counts on that. Under South Carolina Code Section 15-3-530(5), most injury suits must be filed within three years of the crash. Section 15-3-530(6) gives a wrongful death action three years running from the date of death. Those are outer limits, not targets. Witnesses move, storefront video is recorded over, and a street gets repaved or restriped.
Some claims run on a shorter clock. If a city vehicle, a county vehicle, or a public transit bus was involved, or the claim concerns a dangerous condition on a public road, the South Carolina Tort Claims Act applies. Section 15-78-110 bars an action brought more than two years after the loss was or should have been discovered, extended to three years if a claim was first filed under that act. Which deadline governs depends on the facts, so it is worth one call early rather than a guess.
These are not routine fender bender claims. The injuries are usually severe, liability is fought hard because of the comparative negligence cliff, and the money may have to come from more than one place: the driver liability policy, your own uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage, and sometimes a household relative policy. Adjusters handle claims like yours every day. Doing it alone from a hospital bed is not a fair match.
Schiller and Hamilton Law Firm keeps an office in Charleston at 1629 Meeting Street Road, close to both the peninsula streets and the North Charleston corridors where many of these crashes happen. We go after the video before it is gone, track down witnesses, work out the real cost of future care with your doctors, take every call from the insurer, and file in the Charleston County Court of Common Pleas when the offer is not fair. The consultation is free, the fee is contingent, and you will talk with someone who treats this as what it is. Call 843-350-5420.
Nothing up front. We take pedestrian cases on a contingency fee, so you owe no attorney fee unless we recover for you. The first consultation is free and carries no obligation, so you can find out where you stand at no risk. Call our Charleston office at 843-350-5420.
Often yes. South Carolina uses modified comparative negligence, so you can recover as long as your share of the fault is not greater than the driver share, with the award reduced by that share. If your share tips past half, recovery is barred, which is why we contest those percentages from the first week.
Often yes. Uninsured motorist coverage on your own policy, or on a household relative policy, can reach you even though you were walking. Section 38-77-170 requires a prompt police report plus physical contact, an independent witness affidavit, or a recording of the crash. We move fast on nearby cameras.
Most injury suits must be filed within three years of the crash under South Carolina Code Section 15-3-530(5), and a wrongful death suit within three years of the death under Section 15-3-530(6). Claims against a government entity fall under the Tort Claims Act, where Section 15-78-110 sets two years unless a claim is filed first.
Care from the ambulance through surgery and rehabilitation, future treatment, lost pay, and reduced earning ability, along with pain, scarring, and the loss of things you used to do. If a pedestrian is killed, the family may bring a wrongful death claim. Future costs are often the largest part of the case.
You pay nothing unless we recover.
Charleston Office, Answering 24/7
Tell us what happened and we will review your Charleston pedestrian claim at no cost. No fee unless we win.
